


Friends Should Be Friends

by FunkyinFishnet



Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, Worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:09:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23329765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FunkyinFishnet/pseuds/FunkyinFishnet
Summary: You can't forgive a friend who turns on you and turns you into something as bad as them. Candice can't understand why Johnny would choose to team with Tommaso again. She can't understand why Tegan gets it or why she thrives on it.
Relationships: Johnny Gargano/Candice LeRae
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	Friends Should Be Friends

**Author's Note:**

> Set in the lead up to the Worlds Collide 2020 show.

There was a patch of scorched earth in the Gargano’s back garden. Candice had dealt with the makeshift fire pit herself, scraping away the ashy remains. But the scorch marks were still there in the garden, from when Johnny had raged and had had to do something about Tommaso. All they’d had left was mementos. A lot of photos got burned that day.

Now, Tommaso was in their apartment, drinking their beer, laughing. He and Johnny were...they weren’t friends. But they weren’t enemies either.

Candice texted Aleister,  _ How do I  _ **_really_ ** _ protect my home? _

__

She already had protection in places - herbs under the mat, other bundles burned at the entrances and exits, intent always clear - but this felt bigger. She waited outside, ignoring how cold the wind was. Aleister didn’t take too long to reply, he saw everything that wasn’t said.

_ Combine your blood and your husband’s, think about what you want to protect, make up a gris bag for every doorway. Stay smart. _

__

That wasn’t an idle warning. Candice nodded and saved the message in a separate place on her phone, deleting it from her inbox. She had a lot saved about protection. The industry, in and out of Florida, was a rat cage and she’d met people like Aleister all over the world, people who slipped past veils and could help if anyone respectfully asked. 

Now though, Candice didn’t want help, she wanted to get out of here. She couldn’t sit still in her own skin. The home she and Johnny had made together, it felt  **wrong** now, because Tommaso was in it again. Candice had the huge urge to throw him out and do a lot of meditation and cleansing. She wanted to throw Johnny too until he saw long term again.

She messaged him that she was going to see friends in the next block, keeping it vague, hoping he’d remember to follow their protocol and message her if he was leaving. He’d been intense about it before, because of Tommaso, now there was every chance he’d forget, because of Tommaso.

Candice scratched her arms as she walked and then knocked a specific sequence on the second door she got to. She only had to wait a moment before Kacey let her in, “You’re out in this? Are you okay?”

Candice didn’t answer, waiting until Kacey locked the door behind her before moving into the lounge where Tegan was taking up a sofa with blankets, snacks and her puppy, Blue. She was wearing her white onesie, the one with the unicorn hood. The last time Candice had seen her wearing it was when Dakota had on a matching one. But Tegan looked happy to be wearing it now and stood to hug Candice full-bodied as Blue bounced around Candice’s feet. Candice spent soothing minutes petting Blue and rubbing his tummy. Animals were the best, their instincts were so clear and honest. When she looked up again, Kacey had left.

“She can take a hint, that girl,” Tegan said, eyes twinkling proudly. “She’ll be in her room now, earphones on, volume up, so she can’t hear a thing.”

Oh, had Tegan said to bolt the moment Candice ever showed up? Tegan answered Candice’s look, “She’s learning.”

Candice nodded, understanding - Tegan was teaching Kacey. One lesson was probably something like “don’t get involved in messy shit, don’t get stuck there, eyes open.”

“Tommaso’s at our apartment,” Candice started with.

Tegan’s eyes went wide but not surprised. She offered Candice the bags of chips, Candice sat down properly beside her.

“Got a box from the UK this morning,” Tegan told her, grinning at the very British snacks she’d covered the sofa with. “He and Johnny are really gonna do this then, necessary evil and all that?”

Candice’s lips twisted. Necessary evil. Everything about Tommaso had been unnecessary for years. Candice had been seeing all the worst memories lately when she slept, and more than that, she’d been seeing how Johnny had dropped in the weeks after, getting obsessive and angry until it was hard to tell who was more mad; him or Tommaso. Candice has been seeing Tommaso’s smile a lot too, proud like all his plans were coming true, like Johnny changing had been the goal the whole time.

Tegan's hand closed around Candice's. "Oh, love."

The silence rolled along with Candice’s stomach until Tegan broke it, “You can always have my knee brace, it’s handy in a scrap.”

Candice laughed; yeah, Dakota had finally gotten hers when Tegan had whaled on her and smashed her face with the knee brace Dakota had been holding onto like a trophy for months. Looking around now, Candice couldn’t see a single thing that had belonged to Dakota. Every scrap of her really had been kicked out. Candice remembered doing that with Tommaso the first time round.

“This is safe here, right?” she asked suddenly, skin going cold. “It’s protected?”

Tegan nodded immediately, “The moment she was gone, I redid everything, fresh bags and combinations she wouldn’t know, so she can’t get in here if she tries.”

“Aleister.”

“No, Shay.”

That was a surprise and it had to show because Tegan smiled widely, “I thought, why not use someone just starting out, fresh into his wicca. He’s got ideas most practitioners don’t think of, he’s already inventing new ways of doing it all.”

Smart. Candice kept hold of Tegan’s hand. Blue was beside Tegan now, begging for attention but somehow staying still too, like he knew this was important and that if he was a good boy he’d get rewarded. Mulan was playing on the TV and Tegan was watching it with a soft happy smile, offering Candice an open packet of Jaffa Cakes. Candice took two.

“I know what it’s like being on the other side,” Tegan laughed at Candice’s face but she didn’t sound sorry. “My old tag partner, he turned on me and then years later, when we were back to being on the same sort of side, I turned on him. It made sense at the time. We’ve both gotten our dream countries.”

There’s a vague memory from when Candice had worked over in the UK, back when Tegan was finishing up there. She remembered Tegan hugging a tall guy who insulted her and hugged her back, still insulting her. She remembered him not being at Tegan’s goodbye drinks and Tegan not being upset at all. She didn’t look upset now either. Candice couldn’t think that through without shaking her head though, she couldn’t imagine hurting someone she cared about and called a friend and she couldn’t imagine forgiving them if they did it to her. Thinking about it made her angry and want to reach for a kendo stick. It’d been hard enough teaming with Io at Survivor Series.

“That doesn’t make sense to me.”

Tegan looked at her, her amazing eyes shading but she was smiling too, like she understood Candice’s confusion.

“I don’t suppose I can explain it really. It’s a fact of how we are, me and him. There’s no clean breaks. I’ll always be glad to see him, he’ll always be a dickhead and he’ll never say a proper goodbye because it never is. Sometimes we’ll beat the shit out of each other and sometimes,  **very** sometimes, we’ll team up. There’s no getting rid of him.”

She didn’t sound upset, more like she was actually fond of the craziness. Then Tegan’s eyes shaded again though, “Didn’t ever think I’d end up like that with Dakota though.”

She leaned towards Candice and Candice adjusted so they were leaning against each other, Tegan’s words turning through her thoughts as she tried to make sense of them, of Johnny and Tommaso.

“It doesn’t sound like you ever hated him though.”

“Oh, I did,” Tegan sounded so sure and her eyes were burning now. “Hated him more than anyone. Still feel it sometimes when he really pushes it. But when we’d team up, man...don’t think I felt that energy again until…until Dakota.”

Her eyes were still burning but it wasn’t like she was upset. Candice thought suddenly, that she didn’t actually know all of her friend at all.

“Sounds like you’ve got a type.”

Tegan grimaced and cackled, face tipped up to the ceiling. “Oh God, don’t tell him! He’ll take all the credit. I already get DMs every show.”

Were the DMs insults? Candice really didn’t get how fond Tegan looked when she talked about someone she’d hated. Did that mean Tegan wasn’t going to hate Dakota one day? Candice’s skin itched. Forgiveness couldn’t always be earned.

“You know Johnny handled it really well when he and Tommaso buddied up again for the Dusty Classic,” Tegan said matter-of-factly, petting Blue with her free hand.

Candice smiled proudly thinking about it - Johnny stopping Tommaso from repeating history by throwing him into the staging. Even then, he’d thought working with Tommaso was worth it if it meant winning NXT gold. And Tommaso hadn’t been able to surprise him again. Now Candice was the only one surprised Johnny was volunteering to reform the team. Because she knew, and Johnny knew, what was gonna happen to him afterwards. He’d said he’d hated that before. Candice scratched her wrist, her stomach dropping, so who had Johnny been lying to then?

“You know what it’s like to be so angry you can’t stop fighting, I’ve seen videos,” Tegan nudged Candice. “You get out the other side and you win.”

Right, Candice could count a few titles and important victories she’d gotten from getting that mad, along with a quart of blood loss and pain that went on for weeks. But Candice wasn’t friends with anyone she’d fought like that. She couldn’t imagine wanting to be near them ever again. Tegan talked about it so easily. Like Johnny was with Tommaso now, it didn’t feel possible but he was in their lounge now having a beer. And Johnny didn’t have a problem with that, because they could win at World’s Collide. Tommaso wasn’t even Johnny’s goal right now, that was all Finn.

“You use what you’ve got to,” Tegan continued, one finger tugging at her knee support. “And you win, and they don’t.”

Because that was all that mattered. But Candice had seen what happened afterward, when Johnny had won and he’d changed and it’d taken months to get her husband back. Did Tegan honestly not think she could lose herself here, in her fury at Dakota? It was more like Tegan was **thriving** in it, and that wasn’t great. For her, or Johnny.

It wasn’t just that, Tegan seemed more comfortable having someone to hate. Like this was how she shone, and she loved it. Candice didn’t say anything, she ate chips and held Tegan’s hand, thinking about the gris bags she was gonna make up tonight while trying not to think too much about how the way Tegan was talking, Candice and Tegan might end up hating each other one day, and Tegan would love it.


End file.
